The Islais Creek Channel a waterway that runs near 3rd and Cesar Chavez in San Francisco, is expected to rise with global warming.

Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

The cities of San Francisco and Oakland are not giving up their fight to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change, asking a federal appeals court Wednesday to reconsider their previously dismissed lawsuits against five oil companies.

Attorneys for the cities have alleged the companies knowingly sold products that warmed the planet, and in a groundbreaking legal challenge, demanded Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell pay for damages. The U.S. District Court in San Francisco tossed the cases last year.

With the appeal, the cities hope to re-join the unusual but mounting effort to stick oil and gas manufacturers with such costs as building seawalls and strengthening roads and buildings in the face of global warming. More than a half dozen cities and counties in California, as well as New York City and Washington state’s Kings County, are suing for losses.

Dismissal of the San Francisco and Oakland cases does not affect the other challenges, which are being pursued in separate federal and state courts.

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Judge William Alsup, who ruled against the Bay Area cities in June, acknowledged that the industry was contributing to climate change by producing greenhouse gases, though he said it wasn’t appropriate for the courts to regulate the companies. He said that authority belonged to Congress.

Attorneys for the city of San Francisco and Oakland argue in their filing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that their case isn’t about regulation but compensating those who are being damaged.

The cities initially filed their suits in state Superior Court, where they alleged that the oil companies constituted a “public nuisance” under California law. The defendants, however, requested the cases be moved to federal court where much broader issues were considered. The appeal now asks the suits to be returned to California judges.

“We filed this case in state court, and that’s where it should be decided,” San Francisco city Attorney Dennis Herrera said in an email.

San Francisco estimates that rising seas are threatening at least $10 billion of public property and $39 billion of private land and buildings.

Like many of the communities challenging the industry, San Francisco and Oakland have maintained that the oil companies acted similarly to Big Tobacco, which long ago identified the harm its products were causing, yet downplayed it and continued to sell goods.

“Companies cannot lie to their customers for decades about the dangers of their products and walk away with impunity,” Oakland City Attorney Barbara J. Parker said in an email.

Attorneys for the industry have said they did not have the information the cities think they had. They also have argued that they can’t be sued when they’re following the nation’s emissions laws.

Kurtis Alexander is a general assignment reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, frequently writing about water, wildfire, climate and the American West. His recent work has focused on the impacts of drought, the widening rural-urban divide and state and federal environmental policy.

Before joining the Chronicle, Alexander worked as a freelance writer and as a staff reporter for several media organizations, including The Fresno Bee and Bay Area News Group, writing about government, politics and the environment.